Up until now, we’ve explained how Candy Crush Saga works, as well as outlined the potential costs of playing it. Now, it’s time to look at the high points and low points of the game, and determine whether it will be a sweet escape for you, or just leave you with a toothache. Here’s our analysis of the game’s pros and cons.

Pros

Free to play — Candy Crush Saga costs no money to download and install, and most of the game can be played while avoiding in-app purchases.

Varying elements demand differing strategies — Though the gameplay of Candy Crush Saga is rather simple, its constantly-evolving mechanics create increasingly complex challenges. Time and move limits, obstacles that block off parts of the game board, and secondary objectives to fulfill add up to a game that pushes your brain to the limit and seldom gets boring!

Boosters are here to help — As you play, you can unlock, earn, and buy special game pieces and functions that will help you complete the game’s levels more easily. If you’re stuck on a particularly difficult level, try using one of these “boosters”. It may just give you the edge that you need to move forward!

A saga of epic proportions — Candy Crush Saga currently has over 2500 levels, and is constantly adding more, so there’s almost always a new challenge waiting around the corner for you!

Cons

You only live five times — Each time you fail a level’s objective(s) in Candy Crush Saga, you lose a life. You can only have five lives at a time (unless you find a booster that gives you infinite lives for a certain amount of time), and once they’re gone, you can no longer play the game. You must either wait for your lives to replenish (at a rate of one every 30 minutes), or contact your friends on Facebook through the game and ask them to give you extra lives.

Tickets, please — After you complete the first three sets of levels, you need a set of 3 tickets to unlock each proceeding set of levels. To get them, you must send requests to your friends on Facebook through the game, buy and spend gold bars, or complete a set of three “Mystery Quests”. (“Mystery Quests” are levels from previous sets that have higher target scores, and can only be completed once every 24 hours.)

The bottom line: 8/10

Candy Crush Saga is a simple “match-three” game on the surface, but the more you play it, the more complex it gets. Secondary objectives, obstacles on the board, and other gameplay-altering elements — coupled with time and move limits — will keep you entertained and force you to flex your brain muscles. Fortunately, you’ll have plenty of help in the form of “boosters”, functions that give you special game pieces or let you break the game’s rules in order to have an advantage in clearing those tough levels. And there are a lot of levels to clear, so your candy-crushing adventure will last quite a while.

One of the most disliked parts of Candy Crush Saga is the “lives” system, in that if you fail to clear levels too often, you will run out of lives and no longer be able to play the game. This can be remedied, however, by asking friends on Facebook for more lives, buying more lives with in-game currency, or simply waiting for lives to replenish. Still, it’s a hassle that disrupts the flow of the game.

Another annoying game element that disrupts Candy Crush Saga’s flow is the “tickets” system, in that you must collect tickets in order to advance to the later stages of the game. Tickets can be bought with in-game currency, received from friends on Facebook, or earned by completing three “Mystery Quests” (though you can only complete one every 24 hours).

Overall, Candy Crush Saga is a simple yet challenging puzzle game that is as vast as it is charming. Its strengths lie in its scope, the variability of its levels, and the numerous creative aids that it allows the player to earn or buy and use in order to progress. Its main drawbacks are in the annoying-to-negotiate hurdles to progressing in the form of the “lives” system and the “tickets” system, and how in-your-face the game is about buying in-game currency or connecting with friends on Facebook to overcome these hurdles.

That’s our verdict on Candy Crush Saga. But you don’t have to take our word for it if you don’t want to… go ahead and play the game yourself! It’s free, after all! Our next tutorial will show you how to get started by downloading and installing Candy Crush Saga on your mobile device.

So far, we’ve given you a brief introduction to what Candy Crush Saga is and how it works. In this lesson, we’ll get into how much it can cost you. Don’t fret too much; most of the game can be played without paying if you’re skilled… and maybe have a few friends on Facebook who can help you out.

Is Candy Crush Saga free?

Candy Crush Saga is free to download, install, and play on your mobile device. The only aspect of the game that costs money is the gold bar system, which acts as the currency for Candy Crush Saga. Gold bars can be purchased from the Candy Bank in the game, and then exchanged for various elements within the game.

How does Candy Crush Saga make money?

Candy Crush Saga primarily makes money by selling gold bars, the in-game currency for Candy Crush Saga. Gold bars are purchased from the Candy Bank and can be spent on various game elements to help the player advance, such as extra lives, power-ups, or unlocking the next set of levels in the game to play.

Game elements in Candy Crush Saga also cost varying numbers of gold bars. For a partial list of the gold bars required for buying things such as extra lives, boosters, and tickets to unlock a proceeding set of levels, see this page on the Candy Crush Saga Wiki.

Note that some elements that cost gold bars in Candy Crush Saga, such as getting extra lives or passing to the next set of levels, can be supplanted by contacting one’s friends on Facebook through the game, or passing certain other qualifications. One example is “Mystery Quests“, sets of previous levels with higher target scores.

Well, that’s a bit of information about how much Candy Crush Saga costs to play. Our next tutorial will have our review of the game.

There’s trouble in the Candy Kingdom, and it’s up to you to help save the day! Join Tiffi, Mr. Toffee, Odus the owl, and all of their friends in the sweet-filled puzzle adventure that is Candy Crush Saga!

So what exactly is Candy Crush Saga?

Candy Crush Saga is a puzzle game for mobile devices that involves switching adjacent pieces on a game board to create lines of 3 or more pieces of the same colour. Besides target scores, many levels have additional objectives or obstacles. However, players can use special pieces and functions for help.

How does Candy Crush Saga work?

1. Swap adjacent candies to create lines of 3 or more candies of the same colour.

It’s a pretty simple concept, but obstacles and other special considerations will make playing the game more complex and strategic, as you will soon see!

2. Match 4 or 5 candies of the same colour at a time to create candies with special effects!

For example, create a Striped Candy and match it to clear a whole row or column of the game board, or create a Colour Bomb Candy and switch it with any other candy to eliminate all candies of that colour on the board! You can even switch two special candies and combine their effects for even greater candy-busting power!

3. Boosters are here to help if you get stuck.

If a certain level is too tough for you, consider activating a “booster” before or during the level. Boosters can do all sorts of things, like letting you start with special candies on the board, eliminate any one candy or obstacle on the board, or even turn regular candies into special candies without needing to match them! Be careful, though… boosters have limited uses, and you can’t get them back even if you aren’t able to clear a level while using them!

4. An epic saga of confounding candy conundrums!

Candy Crush Saga has over 2500 levels to test your skill, strategy, and luck… and more are being added all the time! Many levels have time limits, or else secondary objectives that you must fulfill in a limited number of moves… all while still achieving the target score! In addition, the game will gradually place obstacles on the board that will block off candies or spaces. You’ll need to find a way around — or through — layers of icing, licorice strings, and chocolate bars in order to win your way to new levels!

That’s a brief introduction to the world of Candy Crush Saga! In the rest of our Candy Crush Saga course, we’ll touch on how much the game costs to play, give you instructions on how to download and install the game for your mobile device, and teach you the ins and outs of playing the game (including a few handy tips and tricks). Get ready to indulge your sweet tooth — while giving your brain a workout — in Candy Crush Saga!